


Dogs Roaming

by Michelle_A_Emerlind



Category: The Walking Dead (TV), The Walking Dead - All Media Types
Genre: Canon Divergence, Explicit Language, First Time, M/M, Season 3/4 Gap
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-02
Updated: 2015-09-02
Packaged: 2018-04-18 17:50:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 883
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4714961
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Michelle_A_Emerlind/pseuds/Michelle_A_Emerlind
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Daryl finds Martinez one day and things start to happen.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dogs Roaming

**Author's Note:**

> This is meant to take place somewhere in the Season 3/4 gap as a canon divergence.
> 
> Thanks to skarlatha, mermaidsheenaz, and sourwolf for reading/editing/talking me through the fic! Your help is always appreciated!

Daryl found him hiding in the bushes one day, hissing and spitting like a wounded cat, stuffed down in the foliage. And even though it would take them months, that was that. 

He was bit, but not walker bit. Coyote, he claimed. Daryl figured it was just a dumb stray dog, but didn’t tell him. He’d already resolved to bring him back to the prison the second he’d laid eyes upon him and so it didn’t matter much what had got him, long as Hershel gave him the clear. 

Daryl was smart enough, then, to tell the difference between the bad ones and the good ones who’d just got fucked over in the mess of shit that had become the world. And maybe a part of him, too, wanted to prove Martinez wrong. Wanted to prove that they didn’t have to just jump upon each other’s necks like dying dogs and they could all live in fucking harmony, a-goddamn-men. 

So Daryl had brought him to Rick. That was his first mistake. 

***

Rick and Daryl had fallen into each other like two rivers crashing together and they had become water so fast that it was impossible to tell who was who anymore. Everything between them crackled with a heady kind of love showcased in the meeting of their mouths, the pouring of their eyes, and the way they clung together like velcro straight out of the packaging. 

Nothing between them had ever been just fucking. Which is why Daryl got so goddamned confused at the way Rick reacted to Martinez. Truth be told, he was fascinated by it and he spent more time leaning back on his haunches and just watching the two of them than he ever did participating. 

Rick’s skin came alive under Martinez’s hands, more so than it ever did for Daryl. It became fucking tsunamis, a goddamn pit of snakes--arching and writhing and twisting just where Martinez wanted it to go. And they fucking looked at each other too much, eyes tough and impenetrable, glossed over with a hardness that Daryl was never allowed to participate in. 

It took him months and a good bit of yelling, coupled with quite a few hand gestures, to realize the truth of all of it. That Rick could say one word to Daryl and Daryl would understand its meaning somewhere deep down in the pit of his stomach like science. But communication wasn’t like that for Martinez, at least not for Martinez and Rick. It was touch, pure and simple. Something like a language crafted between them that Daryl could only listen to with his ears half fogged up. 

But in the end, none of it mattered. It was all hammering out the fine little details, figuring out just where everyone got to sit around the dinner table. It wasn’t about any of them stopping or leaving. All three of them were too damn stubborn for that. 

***

It took Daryl and Rick two weeks to start kissing behind sheds when they met, to nip and bite and suck and breathe each other in like fucking supernovas exploding into each other’s mouths. And when Daryl hauls Martinez back through the gates, it takes Rick and him less than forty-eight hours to end up fucking in an abandoned prison cell, Rick’s legs scraping up his waist like he’s trying to form a new Grand Canyon. 

But for Daryl and Martinez, it takes months. They circle each other like trash dogs, neither one quite knowing how to jump in. Daryl figures he knows he wants to. He’s probably wanted to since the first time he saw the bastard, driving up with the Governor and the whole fire of the earth beside him. And Martinez, for the looks he gives him, wants it back just in kind. 

But they’re too alike, too reflected upon one another like mirrors stacked front to front, echoing the air between themselves and nothing else. It’s Martinez who breaks first, starts with his Catholic daddy and like that, they begin. Drip by drip by drip. 

They talk all night. Martinez pulls it out of him like a leech set upon the blood and Daryl speaks words to him that he could never speak to Rick, because Rick wouldn’t damn well get it. Things about Merle. Things about his dad. Daryl finds they’re more alike than he ever thought possible, just that Martinez skin is darker, hides it more. 

They start when the sun sets and they end when the sun rises, when all the ugly has been dredged out of them like water pouring through a filter and Martinez, before he leaves, reaches out to clap Daryl on the shoulder. It’s not nearly as intimate as the things Daryl does with Rick, the way their tongues sing together like fucking choir music. But somehow, it’s more than that, too. Daryl’s grunts his answer and Martinez gives him an eyebrow back and, well, that is that. All done and over, the last little piece that Daryl’s been missing slotted in and clicked into place. 

And even though they fight and bicker and moan at each other, even though one will get boiling hot jealous and fly off the fucking handle for an hour or two, they make it work. They dig in.

**Author's Note:**

> Tumblr Links:  
> [MAE's Rickyl Fics and Recs](http://maerickyl.tumblr.com/): Where you can find a list of my fanfic, fanfic recs, and snippets of works in progress.  
> [Michelle A. Emerlind](http://michelleaemerlind.tumblr.com/): My general tumblr where I put stuff? And things? And just whatever I want.


End file.
